SNOW HILL — With at least three pending bills pre-filed calling for a delay, a contentious regulation should be getting an early review this month once the Maryland General Assembly reconvenes Jan. 8.
Debate over a new Phosphorous Management Tool (PMT) has raged since late this summer. Environmental advocacy groups like Assateague Coastal Trust (ACT) as well as the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) have argued that the tool, which would limit the amount of manure that can be applied in certain areas, is an absolute necessity to combat runoff into local waterways. Farmers on the lower shore have had the opposite reaction, claiming that the PMT would unreasonably force them to stop using chicken manure on too many of their fields and have to replace that with more expensive forms of fertilizer.
Lower shore legislators have so far been vocal about their concerns in moving forward with the new PMT. There are at least three bills already pre-filed for review once the assembly resumes in Annapolis on Jan. 8, according to Worcester County Commissioner Virgil Shockley.
“What you’ve got on the phosphorous right now is you’ve got several pre-filed bills that basically have been pre-filed to make sure there is an economic impact study,” he said.
Shockley reported that bills have been filed by state Senator Jim Mathias and Delegates Norm Conway and Mike McDermott for further examination of the proposed PMT. One of the bills is asking for an in-depth economic impact survey to gauge how hard of a hit farmers, especially poultry farmers, will take if mandated to follow the new regulation.
At the last lower shore representative meeting with Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) Secretary Buddy Hance in November, farming representatives and local elected officials predicted that the PMT could devastate farming on the Eastern Shore.
“I understand the environmental side of it. But those environmentalists … their skin in the game is theoretically cleaning the bay,” McDermott told Hance in November. “The skin in the game down here is our economy could be technically destroyed or at least set back at a time when people can’t afford that anyways. What would 36 months cost us on this end as opposed to what it’s going to cost us on the other end, especially for something that’s not measurable?”
There is near universal support among lower shore representatives for at least a brief delay to make time for an economic study. It would need to happen soon, said Shockley, since any comprehensive study would take months.
“I think you’re going to see something probably early on. I think you’ll see one of those bills being discussed within probably the first two weeks,” he said. “It would surprise me if you don’t get something within the first few weeks because you’re talking about an economic study that’s going to take six to nine months.”
Shockley, a poultry farmer, has not been shy in his criticism of the PMT.
“They managed to do something about as backwards and about as wrong as you could ever do something as far as trying to push a regulation through,” he said. “They had one objective. They didn’t care what the outcome was. At the end of the day, they had one objective. It was literally health care for agriculture.”
The only silver lining to the regulation, Shockley added, is that it has helped unite the farming community to a degree he has never witnessed.
“The farming community, I can truly say, I have never seen them be as proactive and as aware of what’s going on with regulations, either from state or from the feds, as they are right now,” Shockley said.
Priceless Each Friday, 52 Weeks a Year!